She made arrangements to give him a private audience even before he saw the king, where her reception of him showed how deep and ineffaceable was her love for her family and her old home, even while fairly recognizing the fact that her first duties and her first affections now belonged to France.

The old warrior avowed that he had been greatly moved by the touching affection with which she spoke to him of her love and veneration for her mother; and by the tears which he saw in her eyes when she said that the one thing wanting to her happiness was the hope of being allowed one day to see that dear mother once more.

She showed him some of the last presents which the empress had sent her, and dwelt with fond minuteness of observation on some views of Schoenbrunn and other spots in the neighborhood of Vienna which were endeared to her by her early recollections.
The return of mild weather seemed to be bringing with it same return of strength to the king, when, on the 28th of April, he was suddenly seized with illness, which was presently pronounced by the physicians to be the small-pox.

All was consternation at Versailles, for it was soon perceived to be a severe if not a malignant attack; and at the same time all was perplexity.

Thirty years before, when Louis had been supposed to be on his deathbed at Metz, bishops, peers, and ministers had found in the loss of royal favor reason to repent the precipitation with which they had insisted on the withdrawal of Madame de Chateauroux; and now, should he again recover, it was likely that Madame du Barri would he equally resentful, and that the confessor who should make her removal a necessary condition of his administering the sacraments of the Church to the king, and the courtiers who should support or act upon their requisition, would surely find reason to repent it.